Article
Combined heart-liver transplantation without additional use of a veno-venous bypass – own experience and review of the literature
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Published: | May 20, 2011 |
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Introduction: There are only a few reports about combined heart-liver transplantations. The surgical techniques differ widely ranging from sequential implantation of the organs to different techniques of simultaneous transplantation. We report about our experience with simultaneous, combined heart- liver- transplantations without using a veno-venous bypass demonstrating that this is a feasible surgical technique.
Materials and methods: Since 2005, four combined heart-liver transplantations were performed at our department. The combined heart-liver transplantations were performed by implantation of the liver during the reperfusion period of the newly implanted heart.
Results: The mean operating time was 534±247 minutes and the ischemia times for heart and liver were 190±72 minutes (cold ischemia time heart); 98±96 minutes (warm ischemia time heart); 349±101 minutes (cold ischemia time liver) and 36,25±3,5 minutes (warm ischemia time liver), respectively. Three patients were discharged from hospital after an uneventful clinical course. One patient died from multi-organ failure during the ICU stay on the 23rd postoperative day.
Conclusion: We suggest the combined, simultaneous heart-liver transplantation without veno-venous bypass to be a feasible surgical technique.